


may peace be with you

by setosdarkness



Series: OTP Collection - JuHaku [13]
Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Childhood JuHaku, M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 14:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2854997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setosdarkness/pseuds/setosdarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Judar can only sleep when he's with Hakuryuu, because the buzzing of the rukh is least noisy when they're together. </p><p>[or: the one where Judar can only find true peace when he's with Hakuryuu]<br/>[or: the fic born from that childhood JuHaku headcanon thread with the lovely Chelsea ❤]</p>
            </blockquote>





	may peace be with you

**Author's Note:**

> Chelsea – I know that there's a huuuuuge chance that you probably won't read this – but here it is! As I had mentioned, I wanted to write about this childhood JuHaku headcanon that I got from our conversation ahahaha. I was planning to just make this super short, like a fluffy sweet drabble about sleepy Judar just sinking into Hakuryuu everywhere, but… it ended up being more about Judar following Hakuryuu around, which then extends to canon timeline orz

•••

As always, the rukh is so very noisy around him.

At first, he found it entertaining – they buzz around at random intervals, but they're especially noisy whenever the old hag (or to the lesser extent, the old geezers) nags at him about magic that he has to learn, about behavior he should be displaying to the so-called important members of the royal family.

He's very interested in magic, but he doesn't like how they want to just fill his days with it – he'd like to run around the palace and explore the different rooms and eat the different fruits they have and play with the cool ice castles while the sun blazes overhead. He's not very fond of the scoldings about his behavior – he doesn't want to bow and smile around the emperor and his kids and that one tag-along retainer with bright red hair – their rukh feels _suffocating_ , for one – and they talk around for _hours_ and they're so very boring.

Anyway, he usually amuses himself with listening to the crackling buzz of the little birds that seem to flock to him like bees to honey. But then he discovers that the buzzing doesn't ever _stop_ – so the noise follows him inside his head when he's actually interested in the lectures from the masked magicians, when he's actually preparing to sleep.

He's getting crankier by the day, because he only gets like one or two hours of sleep. Sure, he's in his bed for almost nine hours every night, but the majority of it is spent shooing the annoying birds away from him, attempting to freeze them with his newly-acquired ice magic, and then eventually flopping back down on the fluffy mattress, spent from his exertion.

He complains about this non-stop, but nobody listens to him. Well, they do _listen_ but they're _useless_. They'll either cut off his words and pat him on the head and ask him to focus more on one of the long-ass scrolls or they'll listen patiently to him, nodding like the wooden puppets he saw when he snuck out to the marketplace that one time, before smiling blankly at him and then hauling him back to where the masked magicians are waiting for him.

He sighs and swats at the three birds that fly at him as though they want to sit on his cheeks. He wrinkles his nose at the thought and he ducks away towards the next corridor, ears perked up to listen to the tell-tale groaning of the old geezers regarding his whereabouts. He doesn't want to study magic on days when he doesn't want to – he'd rather _sleep_ , honestly – why can't they understand that? It's not like he's especially slow when it comes to learning things, but it's just that he finds it boring every other day and…

…Eh?

He blinks, then blinks again, for good measure.

The rukh are still around him, hovering over his person like they're deciding whether they want to annoy him by landing on his skin or if they want to make him suspenseful of _when_ they'd be flying back at him, but they're _quiet_. There's no buzzing much like the mutterings of the old geezers whenever they do their secret meetings on the underground hall, there's no chattering much like the servants who gossip and complain about everything under the sun.

There's only a strange quiet that seems to eliminate all noise in the world.

He grins brightly and practically slides to the source of that silence, hands stretched out so he can grab that person dressed in robes that look so soft that he just wants to take them off and wrap them around him, maybe rub his cheeks against them and—

"I found you!" He cries, launching himself against the small back of the person who stands at the middle of the calming silence, his outstretched arms clasping together against the other's stomach, his right cheek already at home at the other's nape that smells like the flowers in the courtyard. The robes do feel as soft as he had imagined, but the skin on the other's nape is much softer, so he burrows his head more against that, breathing in deeply. He feels his newfound pillow squirm and tremble, cries of "B-Brother!" and "S-Sister!" rumbling through the other's back, so he tightens his hold, not about to let go of this treasure.

His eyes are closed, but he can feel unwanted hands reaching out to pull him away, so he frowns and _commands_ the _rukh_ to stop being such useless spectators and to just, maybe block those hands away, blow those annoyances away so he can spend some time with this silence.

He rubs his nose against the soft cloth and—promptly falls asleep.

•••

Of course, after that encounter, he gets a longer-than-usual round of scolding about improper behavior around the royal family, but he doesn't listen to them, because the buzzing of their _rukh_ feels noisier, almost desperate now. He thinks about that for about a minute, but then he decides that he's not particularly interested in discovering why their _rukh_ feels more irritating than usual.

He diverts his thoughts to how he's never particularly been impressed by the so-called royal family when he saw them before, but when he laid his eyes upon Hakuryuu (that's the boy's name, according to the three noisy servants that he managed to corner earlier today) he sort of finally understands why members of the royal family are supposed to be treated differently. Hakuryuu is so small and comfortable, but it's not just his robe or his skin, and it's even not just the delightful reprieve from the noisy _rukh_ that his presence brings. There's something else that he can't place his fingers into – something that he'd like to _discover_ , instead of just throwing to the back of his mind to never be brought up again.

He yawns midway through the old geezers' scolding and they sigh at him like he's being a pain. He _is_ pained by their long-ass ramblings and he _is_ inconvenienced by a lot of things they're asking him to do, so he doesn't think they have the right to sigh at him that way.

They eventually stop though and the old hag even pats him on the head whenever he does something good (which is not very often, recently, but he's more than fine with not having the old hag's hands on him).

Then they keep on asking him to recreate the _borg_ that he has apparently summoned while he was sleeping against Hakuryuu's comfy back earlier.

He's not able to summon it again, but he whines that he's sleepy and maybe he can think about doing that demonstration once he's had his rest.

To his surprise, the old hag smiles that ugly-ass smile of hers and drags him by the arm to where the pink-cheeked Hakuryuu is.

•••

It becomes a routine – he seeks Hakuryuu out whenever he would like take a moment of rest away from the old geezers.

At first, Hakuryuu's all embarrassed and pouty against the thought of having someone snuggle against him at random intervals, but it seems that maybe he has eventually realized that having a _magi_ hang around him is wonderful. Lately, Hakuryuu's not even squirming so much whenever he rests his cheek against his back.

•••

The emperor apparently died or something today.

He doesn't really care, but he doesn't launch himself at Hakuryuu's back. He has learned that doing that whenever Hakuryuu's upset makes their snuggling afterwards not as peaceful, after all.

He approaches more slowly, weaving his arms around Hakuryuu's waist gently, almost as though he wants to give the other a chance to pull away, not that he has ever done so before.

Hakuryuu doesn't pull away and instead leans back on him – the first time he does so without any prompting or whining from him.

He smiles because the silence still remains despite the chaos surrounding them.

•••

The _rukh_ is much noisier today, almost tinted red and black with anger and despair.

He's banned and restrained from going to the main palace wing, where he knows Hakuryuu's bedroom lies.

He sees fire licking up to the sky and feels an odd spike of anger at the thought of having that fire burn at the silence that Hakuryuu is able to produce. The _rukh_ is spinning in whirlpools of chaos and madness, something that he'd be happy to see on an ordinary day, but he'd rather see Hakuryuu surrounded by that sphere of silence more at this point.

He whispers to the air in front of him so that they'll form a sheet of ice that can hopefully put a cool blanket against the fires and silence the _rukh_ forcibly. He manages to send out an ice sheet the size of Hakuryuu's bedroom, but when one of the old geezers grab at his hand he loses control and ends up plummeting melted ice to just one of the sections of the burning palace wing. He only has enough time to see that the fire has been put out on that area, before he's dragged away from the scene.

The _rukh_ is annoyingly noisy and he doesn't get a wink of sleep for the next three days.

•••

Nobody is allowed to enter the healing room, not even _magi_ apparently, so he has to content himself with being as close as possible to Hakuryuu's bed, to Hakuryuu's silence being tainted by the desperation of the healers who work day and night to stop the bleeding and to soothe the burns that have eaten into Hakuryuu's soft skin.

Hakuryuu's silence is still there but it almost tastes like the finest peaches now.

He falls asleep on the tree by Hakuryuu's bedside window, to the thought of Hakuryuu's silence being flavored by things of his choosing.

•••

He _knows_ the exact moment when Hakuryuu finally wakes up from his long months of treatment confinement. He feels the sudden douse of silence that seems to envelop all of _rukh_ around him, which prompts him to jump up from the magic demonstration that the old geezers forced him to do in front of that new pig of an emperor, who doesn't have the boring aura that enveloped the previous emperor, but also doesn't have the same regal presence that Hakuryuu has. He thinks that the tag-along retainer from before (who's now the first prince of the empire) will be better as an emperor than this pig currently on the throne – well, probably _anyone_ would be a better emperor than this guy.

He blithely ignores the way the old geezers call out to him in stern exasperation, as well as the way the pig emperor bellows that he will not stand for his insolence, as well as the way the now-first-prince looks at him with judging eyes, as though he's ascertaining his worth.

His eyebags are hidden by the splash of kohl around his eyes, but he's been feeling really sluggish recently. He's had a lot of fun, true, stirring up chaos whenever the old geezers bring him, but he hasn't had a peaceful night of sleep ever since the Great Fire. Well, no matter. Hakuryuu's now awake, so none of that matters!

He practically hops to where he feels the silence radiate the most and when he sees Hakuryuu's back towards him, he sprints to the other, arms outstretched. It's worryingly easier to wrap his arms around Hakuryuu now, not due to any lack of resistance, but due to the other's frail thinness. But then, it makes sense, because Hakuryuu hasn't had any meals in the months that he's been asleep. No matter. He can share his stack of peaches – something that he's been saving for his after-training eating binge, but he can always get more. They always bow down to his whims recently, after all.

"Hakuryuu!" He cries out, repeating the other's name over and over, almost as though it's a magic spell that will make everything just fine. He rubs his cheeks against the other's nape, feels the unevenness of the other's skin. He feels Hakuryuu tremble in pain in his arms. He locks his arms tighter, but Hakuryuu doesn't cry out for his brothers who are now dead, or his sister who is now holed up in her room that the now-first-prince had apparently requested she keep despite the fall of her status. "I missed you, Hakuryuu!"

"…hey, Judar." Hakuryuu finally returns his countless greetings and words, stiffening in his arms. It almost sounds as though Hakuryuu is surprised that he's still remembered – which is silly, of course. Of course he'll still do this! Hakuryuu is the only sanctuary he has left, after all.

He's about to open his mouth to assure the other that he'll still hang around with him the most, no matter what happens, but the months of lack of sleep take over, and robs him of his words. With his embrace as tight as it could be, he falls asleep while leaning against the now much-smaller Hakuryuu.

•••

Much like the initial months of them knowing each other, Hakuryuu goes through a phase of instinctively tensing and squirming away from his embrace, especially if they're within sight or earshot of anyone else. He doesn't like it, but Hakuryuu's _upset_ , so he forgives that somehow. He also limits most of his sudden tackling whenever he has already surveyed their surroundings for signs of others. Eventually, Hakuryuu must have realized that he'll still _stay_ , that he'll still talk to him about a great deal of things, that he'll still want to sneak out with him to explore the marketplace and the foot of the mountain by the palace border, that he'll still want to snuggle with him inside Hakuryuu's new cramped bedroom that smells of stale air and dust, that he'll still want to rub their skin together despite the uneven surfaces of the scars.

He always ends up falling asleep before he finds the words to voice out all of these though.

But that's okay.

Hakuryuu will eventually understand.

•••

He ends up finding a similar sense of silence with other people – that stupid king, Kouen and his two tag-along brothers, the wrinkly hag Kougyoku, Hakuei even sometimes.

He figures that that's how he's able to first notice his king candidates.

None of them have that vacuum-like silence that Hakuryuu has though.

But then again, he now knows that Hakuryuu is his most special king candidate, so that's not surprising anymore.

•••

He spends more and more time outside the capital.

He still returns to Hakuryuu though, still finds true peace whenever he's pressed against him, the _rukh_ behaving when they're together.

He doesn't like how Hakuryuu is being so terse with him most of the time when they're surrounded by others, but that's something he can forgive somehow.

He has faith that Hakuryuu will—

•••

The night before he leaves for Balbadd, he doesn't get the chance to sneak in even a minute of being with Hakuryuu.

He's in a foul mood throughout the entire trip, not even enticed by the thought of seeing a country teetering on the brink of desperate chaos.

The foul mood continues and his sleepless nights continue and then he sees the stupid king, which is always entertaining, if not for how strong the other is and how shitty he really is for pretending to be all goody-goody when he's just like the rest of them who have the buzz of _rukh_ belonging to those who want to manipulate others through and through. He also meets the chibi magi and his shitty king candidate and the _rukh_ continue to be annoying as always and he can't help but want to crush them into submission.

(He also wants to return to the capital, to where Hakuryuu is not-waiting for him, wasting his time with the motions of normalcy while dividing his time between reading boring scrolls and practicing his spear. Nobody listens to him whenever he whines about returning to the capital for _just a night_ – the old geezers sent with him has scolded him for two hours straight when they discovered him sneaking out with the magic carpet so he can get at least an hour of sleep with Hakuryuu.)

The lack of sleep and the general irritation with the situation he's in… and now he even has to deal with that chibi's strange power that just amplifies the chaotic buzzing of the _rukh_ inside and outside of his mind.

When he finally wakes up, he looks at the old geezers and feels a surge of anger that can't be calmed down no matter how much he tried.

He really needs to see Hakuryuu _soon_.

•••

When he does see Hakuryuu again, the silence has _changed_.

Or maybe, it would be better to say that the way he perceives the other's silence has changed.

While it's true that he has already realized that Hakuryuu has always been special to him as one of his king candidates, now it just feels as though he's always only had _one_ choice after all and the others are just the answers thrown into the mix to confuse him.

He hugs Hakuryuu especially tighter then – and not just because he'd very much like the anger inside him to simmer down a little bit so that he can gather his thoughts as to how he'll approach his revenge against the old geezers and that fucking old hag who apparently think that they can do whatever they wanted with him.

•••

Of course, because this world is fucking unfair, that pig of an emperor had to order Hakuryuu to go to Sindria for some diplomatic mission or some bullshit.

…Sindria and that stupid king are so stupid though, that they might try to change Hakuryuu's silence into something else.

He frowns as he thinks of how he can make sure that doesn't happen.

•••

…of course, because this world is so fucking unfair, he just had to not be able to see Hakuryuu when he makes his way to Sindria.

But that's okay.

Things will be okay soon.

•••

When he does see Hakuryuu again, he's pleased to see that the silence of the _rukh_ around him remains. He's more powerful – tainted by the djinn that has been raised by someone who's not him – but he's also sweeter now, almost as though he has bathed in a pool of blood born from desperation.

He resists glomping Hakuryuu right then.

Hakuryuu will finally understand his reason of wanting to be with him all the time, his lack of words or explanations notwithstanding.

•••

"Lend me your power as a magi, Judar."

He realizes that the silence that accompanies Hakuryuu is the sound of the thousands of corpses they'll end up with at the end of their path.

And that's more than fine.

•••

The night of Hakuryuu's coronation ceremony as the Emperor – he hugs him, arms going around the other's padded waist, his chin resting on the cool metal shoulder armor, their eyes seeing the same view that stretches out from beneath them.

"You really understand everything I want to say."

"Of course I do! I told you we're the only ones who are the same in this world!"

The silence that surrounds them is dark.

He realizes that it's the silence that will await them after they end up destroying this entire world and this shitty destiny.

And that's more than fine – he can't wait until everything is enveloped by the silence of his king.

••• **end**


End file.
